Authors: Kerry Reichs
W
hen the tall girl emerged from the building, it startled Wyatt to realize it was Deborah. Despite her rounded belly, Deborah’s shoulders were thin and angular, like a coat hanger. She looked barely out of high school. If not for the baby, she might be giggling on a bedazzled cell phone about the Jonas Brothers, but that wasn’t her life now.
She slid into the car without a word. Wyatt handed her a smoothie.
At the clinic, they were called in promptly.
“Deborah? I’m Dr. Singh. I’m stepping in for Dr. Osmun today. So you’re,” Dr. Singh glanced at the chart, “thirty weeks?”
Deborah nodded.
“Shall we have a listen for the heartbeat?” Dr. Singh pulled out her portable heart monitor. An observing alien would have thought it was an instrument of pain. Mothers cried, grateful for the respite from anxiety they could not shake throughout a process completely within and entirely out of their control. Wyatt blinked rapidly every time.
“Sure.” Deborah hitched up the paper gown to expose flowered pink panties. Wyatt always felt awkward, but Deborah didn’t seem to care.
Dr. Singh rolled the wand across the girl’s abdomen until a steady “woouw, woouw, woouw” filled the room.
“Congratulations,” Dr. Singh said.
Deborah showed signs of life. “It’s so strong.”
Dr. Singh nodded. “Nature’s been doing this for thousands of years.”
They listened together awhile, the restful possibility of the heartbeat lowering everyone’s blood pressure.
“That’s a healthy heart.” Dr. Singh put the monitor away and wiped Deborah’s abdomen. “Your urine and blood tests look fine too. Have you got any questions?”
Deborah shook her head and looked at Wyatt. He didn’t.
Dr. Singh glanced at the latest sonogram clipped to her file. “This little . . .” She paused. “Do you know the gender?”
“No,” Deborah said. Wyatt remained silent. It was her choice.
“Would you like to know?”
The girl looked at Wyatt. “Would you like that?”
“Very much,” Wyatt said.
“It’s a girl.” Dr. Singh smiled.
“A girl,” Wyatt repeated. The word tasted like daffodils, butterflies, and rainbow sherbet. “A girl.”
“Okay,” was all Deborah said.
“You have a lot of sonograms for a healthy woman your age.” Dr. Singh indicated the file. “Is there a reason we have you coming in so often?”
Deborah shook her head no. “It makes Wyatt feel better.”
“Nervous Nelly,” Wyatt pointed to his chest in self-deprecation.
“I don’t mind, so long as the women in the waiting room don’t eat me,” Deborah said.
“Eat you?” The doctor seemed surprised.
“The ones that aren’t pregnant practically drool when they stare at my stomach.”
“Not everyone”—Dr. Singh paused, then—“becomes pregnant as easily as you.” It would be wrong to call the girl lucky.
“Yeah, I know. It’s nice that I won’t have to worry when I want kids.”
“
When
you want kids?” The doctor was confused.
“I don’t want it, but it seemed wrong to destroy it,” Deborah said, in the tone you would say,
It was wrong to throw away a perfectly good purse because it didn’t match my shoes
. “Wyatt’s adopting. I don’t belong here.”
“Of course you do,” Wyatt protested. God forbid the child should get a notion to birth her baby in the dirty Jacuzzi of a hippie colony without medical attention.
“I’m nineteen for chrissakes! I want to be a reporter, and travel the world. I want to wear a belted trench coat like Audrey Hepburn and go to Africa to cover a revolution. You can’t meet a secret source with a crying baby. My mom would kill me if she knew.”
It was an odd combination, the womanly swollen belly with the fanciful dreams. Pregnancy didn’t care what you wanted or if you were an adult.
“I’m not like you, Wyatt,” Deborah continued. “You have money. So do those women out there. People with money can fix their problems. My family’s different. I know I’ll probably never get to Africa. But having a baby would make it certain.”
It was the first time Deborah had shared her thoughts. It didn’t make Wyatt feel great, but she wasn’t wrong.
“Health isn’t for sale, but you’re rich with it,” Dr. Singh diffused the awkwardness. “Keep taking prenatal vitamins and come back in two weeks.”
In the waiting room, Wyatt said, “Why don’t you sit while I take care of the bill?”
“I think I’ll walk.” She sacrificed additional time in Wyatt’s presence. “I need the fresh air.”
He was about to protest, to tempt her with a healthy protein-packed lunch, then reminded himself she was an adult.
“I have a School Board meeting next time. Would it be okay if my cousin Eva drove you to your appointment?” She nodded. “All right then. Call me if you need anything.”
She paused. “I wasn’t trying to be mean about the money thing.” She surprised him. “It is what it is. I think you’ll be a good dad.”
There was the awkward moment where Wyatt didn’t know whether he should hug her. Wyatt was not a hugger, and it appeared that Deborah wasn’t either, but for that one procreative time. They didn’t. She left with a wave.
Waiting to pay, Wyatt was contemplating the importance of returning to school versus a Hot Sopressata sandwich from Bay Cities Italian Deli when he saw Maryn Windsor emerge from the consultation area.
How many awkward moments could there be in one day, he thought. He could not ignore his benefactor.
“Ms. Windsor?”
She looked up in surprise.
“Wyatt Ozols,” he reminded.
A smile cracked the fatigue on her face. “My hero!”
“Chauffeur, please,” he demurred. “I did nothing but grow pallid. Your check was exceptionally generous.”
“We couldn’t have done it without you.” She didn’t seem to find it odd that she kept encountering him alone at an obstetrician’s office. “Say, are you free for lunch? I’m dying for a salami sub from Bay Cities.”
“Sure,” Wyatt said, because he was.
They beat the lunch crowd, and shortly were sitting outside with sandwiches. Wyatt felt the sunshine like a gloved hand on the top of his head.
“I hope you don’t mind if I gnaw,” said Maryn. “It’s impossible to eat the Godmother like a lady. How far along are you?”
“Oh, I’m not pregnant.” Wyatt concentrated on not getting spicy sauce on his shirt. When he looked up, Maryn’s eyes were merry. He blushed. “Of course I’m not. I’m adopting. I accompany Deborah to her appointments. Want to see the sonogram?” He never got tired of the grainy windscreens of the baby’s face.
“Not married?” She handed the sonogram back quickly.
“No.”
“You’re the first single guy I’ve heard of trying to adopt.”
“That seems to be going around,” he said.
“Even husbands don’t come to every appointment. Are you sweet on the girl?”
“I just pay the bills.”
“Honey, that’s half the marriages in this town.”
“I like to keep an eye on things,” he said. “I’m not very trusting.”
“Really?”
“I supervise high-schoolers.” He smiled.
“What are you keeping an eye on? Smoking? Eating Carl’s Jr. Double Western Bacon Cheeseburgers? Playing Lady Gaga to the baby? Or did your last pregnant girl run off with her gynecologist?”
“Something like that.” She looked taken aback. “Adoption fraud,” he elaborated.
“I’m so sorry.” Maryn’s distress was genuine. “I shouldn’t make jokes. People go through such horrors trying to have a baby.”
“ ‘A man blames the woman who fools him in the same way he blames the door he walks into in the dark.’ ”
“Twain?”
“H. L. Mencken.”
“ ‘A common mistake that people make when trying to design something completely foolproof is to underestimate the ingenuity of complete fools.’ ”
“Wilde?” Wyatt was enjoying himself.
“Douglas Adams.”
“I’m glad I ran into you. Thanks are overdue. I couldn’t have afforded the adoption without you.” The words weren’t big enough.
Maryn blinked rapidly, and put down her sandwich.
“What is it?” Wyatt was alarmed.
Her eyes were full of tears. “That makes me happy.”
“All evidence to the contrary.” Wyatt hated her distress.
“It’s extraordinary that something done without thought could so completely change a person’s life.” She sniffled. “I was just sticking it to the DeGuardis.”
“I’m dependent on a horse! I shall name the child Farasha.”
“I’m dependent on a horse’s ass.” She dabbed her eyes.
But you have the pussy, you make the rules
, Wyatt thought.
“My husband,” she started. Stopped. “
Ex-husband
and I froze embryos during our marriage. We had no idea we’d split up. I had breast cancer and we were thinking about the checklist. Freeze Your Embryos was there between Write a Will and Pack an Overnight Bag. He took a girly mag, I took a Carnation Instant Breakfast drink, and we did our thing.”
Wyatt listened.
“Maybe if we’d been thinking more clearly, we’d have noticed the missing sentence. But we didn’t, so now I want to use the embryos, but he won’t consent.”
“I’m sorry,” Wyatt said. They
were
alike.
“It’s my last chance.” Maryn’s voice was low.
“What’s his hesitation?”
“His wife, I suspect.” She wrapped her hands around her Diet Coke like it was a hot chocolate at a ski lodge. “The women in Andy’s life tend to make the decisions.”
“Have you asked him?”
“We can’t communicate anymore.”
“Sometimes the person you once loved the most can turn you into the ugliest version of yourself,” Wyatt said.
“There’s nothing more wretched than lying next to someone in bed and being lonelier than you’ve ever been. I could no more touch a shoulder inches away than I could swirl sand on the floor of the Mariana Trench.”
Wyatt was comfortable with Maryn’s confidences.
“Relationships are like the sun,” he said. “Nothing feels so good, but if you’re careless, the pain is scorching.” Wyatt had been badly burned, but he blamed his own inattention.
“I’m not holy. I’m suing him for the embryos.” It was wrong to Wyatt that a woman who could pull a foal out of a horse while wearing stilettos should have such stark pain in her eyes. “I don’t understand how he could . . .” She didn’t finish.
“Lots of stuff makes no sense,” Wyatt agreed.
“
Horrible
people have babies . . .”
“
Criminals
have babies . . .”
They spoke in unison.
“We’re alike”—Maryn shook her head— “when you’d think we have nothing in common.”
“I would have envied you walking down the street.”
“You’d have been wrong.”
“I used to get enraged,” Wyatt said. “Drug addicts have babies, murderers have babies, fifteen-year-olds have babies, people who’ve had babies taken away from them have babies. I resented how easy it was for women, like an inalienable biological right.”
“I used to think like that. The loss of autonomy was a shock. Years ago I only had to open my legs to have a baby, now the courts are calling the shots and I have to open my home, my bank accounts, my criminal record, and my skull to prove that I should be able to implant my own eggs.”
“Does the lawsuit make you feel better?” Wyatt asked.
“If I win. I don’t care about Andy’s feelings. Haven’t you ever seen a mama grizzly when a rattlesnake gets too close to her petri dish? I want those eggs.”
“What are your odds?”
“Not great. The law hasn’t caught up to science. We don’t even know whether I’m seeking custody or ownership—I’m blazing a trail through this weird hybrid of family and property law.”
“You’re brave,” Wyatt said.
“I don’t feel brave. I’m systematically shaking the tree.”
“ ‘If the world were only one of God’s jokes, would you work any less to make it a good joke instead of a bad one?”
“Sounds like
Doonesbury
.”
“George Bernard Shaw.”
“ ‘We’re fools whether we dance or not, so we might as well dance.’ ”
“Emma Goldman?”
“Japanese proverb.”
“Do you have a quote about the fools who were beaten to death with salami subs because they ignored the shank eyes they were getting from customers for dawdling on prime table real estate?” Wyatt eyed the circling vultures. A few looked ready to hop forward and peck at them.
“I don’t really care.”
“You
are
brave.”
Maryn laughed. “But I do have a one o’clock.”
A Chinese grandmother who’d garrote you for the last cannoli was in the chair before Maryn had fully stood.